An electronic computer aided design (“E-CAD”) package is utilized to construct a circuit design. For example, the circuit design may be a Very Large Scale Integration (“VLSI”) circuit design. The circuit design consists of a netlist that identifies electronic design components and their interconnectivity within the circuit design. The design is constructed from design blocks (also known as cells), each providing specific functionality to the circuit design. Such design blocks may be re-used with the circuit design, or in other circuit designs. Designs blocks may also be constructed from electronic design elements and other design blocks. Typically, the circuit design is constructed from design blocks in a hierarchical manner, and may utilize design blocks one or more times. Each use of a design block is called an “instance”.
A design engineer may use the E-CAD tool to analyze the circuit design during development. One E-CAD tool provides (a) a fast analysis tool that processes blocks of the design without tracing hierarchical information, resulting in a low level of detail but with reduced analysis time, and (b) a detailed analysis that traces nets of blocks using hierarchical information, resulting in a high level of detail but with increased analysis time. In certain situations, the fast analysis tool may not provide the design engineer with sufficient information to make design choices; in such situations, the design engineer utilizes the detailed analysis. However, when a circuit design includes billions of nets in a netlist of the design, detailed analysis may result in hours or even days of processing time. Such delay causes inefficiency, adding cost to the design process and potentially delaying technological advancement.